


Castiel's Grand Search for the Elusive Author, Irma Allen

by SpaceMatriarchy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Castiel/Top Sam Winchester, Canon Universe, Erotica, M/M, Reunions, Shipper Dean, Writer Sam Winchester, non explicit discussion of pubescent sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-05 04:17:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17911856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceMatriarchy/pseuds/SpaceMatriarchy
Summary: Castiel broke things off with Sam three years ago, and Sam is just fine, now. Really. Even though he's not really over it, and might be spending a little too much time dwelling on their glory daysUntil Dean finds a series of self published paranormal romance novels that bear an uncomfortably strong resemblance to their lives, and detail, with far too much accuracy, the epic romance Sam and Cas used to have. Cas goes on a crusade to find the author, determine if her insider information is evidence of a dangerous spy, and stop the publication of these horrible, pornographic books.Which would also be fine. If Sam wasn't the one who'd written them.





	Castiel's Grand Search for the Elusive Author, Irma Allen

**Author's Note:**

> So I want to start out by shouting out daydreaming_scribe and TFWBT, who both helped beta this story.  
> It took a couple months, but ultimately, I'm really happy with this fic, and I'm super excited to not only have something new to publish, but in a new ship from me, as well! This is also my first (published) foray into smut, which I hope is up to standard.  
> Hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t easy to be a discerning reader when most of your reading material was shoplifted, or excavated from the bottom of the used bookstore’s bargain bin, the only thing you could afford with the two dollars you had left in your pocket after the grocery run. Sometimes, however, Sam had limited options, when the local library wouldn’t accept a motel as a valid address for a new card, and Dad’s failure to register him and Dean at a local school meant even those meager libraries were off limits. It wasn’t uncommon for him to wind up with a backpack full of books he’d chosen in the heat of the moment, based on their covers alone. Formulaic whodunnits, dubiously credible Westerns, battered copies of old standards like Dickens and Twain.

He’d genuinely thought it was just another dumb cowboy book when he’d picked it up for a quarter at a yard sale. Cross his heart and hope to die. But the narrator spent far more time following the farmer’s daughter than the mysterious outlaw, and spent a lot of time waxing poetic about how rugged, handsome, and roguish that mysterious outlaw was. Pretty soon, Sam realized that it probably wasn’t a book written for boys his age, and read, under the covers with a flashlight and a furious blush, as the outlaw fucked the farmer’s daughter by the light of the campfire.

Sam had been twelve. He wasn’t exactly oblivious about sex, despite the woeful state of sex ed in small town America, but he hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about sex, the act, as anything other than the made up, big breasted, bleach blonde pin ups in the Playboy magazine his brother kept at the bottom of his duffel bag. It wasn’t that those images didn’t stir anything in him, far from it, but there had always been something missing that Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on. Women as sexual creatures had never really overlapped with _real_ women, the women he knew and liked. There were women like his teachers, like girls at school, like the few female hunters he’d met, who were capable and thoughtful and who Sam liked to talk to. And then, in a whole other solar system, there were the scantily clad women Dean jacked off to when he thought Sam was asleep. They were practically two different species.

The heroine in his novel was both, and neither. She had a pretty face, and a brain to back it up. The writer described the heaving of her ample breasts, and the quickening of her heart as she rode towards adventure by her lover’s side. She loved the outlaw, truly and deeply, and she also loved the feeling of his tongue circling her clit.

It made Sam feel so, so many things. It played to his pubescent sexuality in new ways, ways he hadn’t considered before. Sex, or at least the sex the characters in his book had, wasn’t intimidating, or magical, or mysterious. It wasn’t about proving anything, either. It was just… fun. It let people be closer with the one they loved. It made them feel good. The fog of hormones and curiosity temporarily parted, it was something that Sam could actually see himself doing, someday, and those thoughts made _him_ feel good, in all the expected ways.

The cowboy book was the first of young Sam’s sexual awakenings. He liked women, sexually, at least when they weren’t somebody else’s disembodied objects of fantasy. He wasn’t gay. Good to know.

Still - Sam ripped the cover off the book and hid it at the bottom of his backpack. It only took about two weeks for Dean to find it, and to mock him viciously for it.

It was another month after that before Sam worked up the courage to look for more books by the same author in their new town’s local library. And then he slipped something from the same publisher into his backpack at a grocery store in the town after that. And then, soon enough, he was scouring Goodwill for well-loved novels with those telltale, flowery cover paintings and cookie cutter blurbs on the back.

_She was something or other. He was somebody else. They were seemingly incompatible, but she feels some kind of way about him. Could they be destined to be together?_

The formula never bothered Sam. It was comforting, in a way, to know that in the end, all the heroine’s dreams would come true. No nasty surprises, or at least none that would last. Just the good stuff, and enough melodrama to make the happy endings feel earned. There was love, and a life, at the end of everyone’s story. Who could blame him for slipping into that world for an escape every once in a while?

* * *

Sam’s second sexual awakening was just as out of left field as the first. It followed roughly the same formula, too - he picked up a paperback, assuming he’d be getting more of the same, and was blindsided by something he was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to like as much as he did, if at all.

A love triangle that wasn’t a love triangle.

It wasn’t the first time one of Sam’s books had placed the heroine at a crossroads, forced to choose between two men. More often than not, one would be the safe, kind, respectable choice, and the other would be conflicted, sexy, even dangerous. Sometimes she’d even entertain the idea of trying them both out in the bedroom, but none of the heroines ever seemed to be that kind of girl. Not until Mariah.

Mariah (a successful publicist) was the object of two men’s desires - Joseph (a client) and Connor (an ex-lover who wanted her back). The three of them had strung Sam along for 90 pages or so, until, before either Sam or Mariah seemed to realize what was happening, all three had fallen into Joseph's California king.

Another 52 pages after that, Mariah watched from the doorway, warmth in her heart, as Joseph and Connor entertained themselves. Without her.

Sam could could have, should have, skimmed over the dude-on-dude. He knew he wasn’t gay. He liked women, after all. The last few years of reading about women’s bodies, women’s sex, women’s pleasure should have been proof enough of that

He didn’t skim. Couldn’t quite bring himself to. His eyes were glued to the page like the words printed thereupon were scripture.

He’d be in college before he had a chance to deal with the things that book taught him about himself, and it’d be even longer before the word ‘bisexual’ seemed to fit like a second skin. So maybe he wasn’t gay - but he wasn’t straight, either. Both and neither.

And all revealed to him by shitty erotica. Well, that was one, surprisingly painless way to do it.

* * *

Once Sam hit Stanford, the internet was decidedly no longer a novelty, and life on a state of the art college campus meant that, for the first time, he could bring the web home from the library. There was the advent of online book stores, and self-publishing, literature meeting the digital age. Erotica blew up online, and romance novels went from sad distraction for housewives, which Sam would vehemently deny enjoying, to an interest he only _mostly_ kept to himself. There were enough girls - and guys - for him to realize how ridiculous most of those books had been, not that he enjoyed them any less for it. There was falling in love in the real world, and he fell _hard._

There was reading the same book in bed with Jess, and little two page stories they’d write for each other. There was abandoning a book halfway through a page because “hey, you wanna try that?” There was that extra warm feeling when they got the the last page of a story and felt, for a few minutes, that little bit of a happy ending bleeding off the pages into the room with them.

And then there wasn’t that, any more.

And then Sam had bigger problems to worry about.

* * *

**_The Demon Dealer_** _is the debut novel by Irma Allen. It tells the story of Jason Singer, a young man under attack from all sides by forces beyond human comprehension, moving him and his brother, Daniel, around like pieces in a cosmic game of chess. In the midst of an impending apocalypse, Rose walks into his life. A demon with good intentions is hard to buy, but how is Jason to resist the temptation she presents? A temptation that grows darker the more addicted he becomes._

* * *

“Can you believe this shit?” Dean spat, rounding the corner into the library with his laptop held far out in front of him, like it might bite if provoked.

Sam’s eyes snapped up from his book. He and Cas had been having a quiet afternoon combing through some of the older and more obscure volumes of lore, thank you very much, without even a case to be concerned about. Only, evidently, for Dean to come crashing in, roaring mad about something, like a bull in a china shop. “What?” Sam asked.

“Charlie just sent me this link,” Dean said. He put the laptop down on the table with a thump. Cas, who had been browsing the shelves on the far side of the library, appeared behind Dean to peek over his shoulder at the screen. His brow creased, in confusion or concern.

“Just look,” Dean continued. “It’s bad enough that Chuck’s fans write their slash porn, but all they gotta do is change some names and now they think they can _sell it?”_

Dean spun the laptop around to face Sam, and the web page he was looking at was one he knew all too well.

 **_The Fallen Angel_ ** _is the fourth book in Irma Allen’s Jason Singer series of paranormal romance novels. Following directly after the events of The Demon Dealer, an old enemy of Jason’s becomes a new friend - and something more - as the apocalyptic fallout of his ill fated relationship with Rose the demon threatens not just the Singer brothers, but all of life on Earth. Cassiel is an angel, programmed to hate everything that Jason is and stands for. So why has he turned coat to join Jason and Daniel’s makeshift band of rebels? And what is it that’s drawing Jason to him so strongly - and could it be mutual?_

A blue and red cover image, photoshopped with just barely enough competence to seem professional, all dramatic lighting and bare chested stock photo models, was embedded beside the text. And at the bottom of the page - ebook and soft cover versions available, from $7.99.

Sam’s blood ran cold. He kinda wanted to scream, kinda wanted to throw up.

“They go through you and me, then me and Cas, and what, now they think you two are gay for each other? _”_ Dean asked.

* * *

So, there were some things that Dean was unaware of, and had been for some time. First, there was the couple confused, standalone (and not so standalone) times Sam had hooked up with their good buddy the angel over there. Maybe more than a couple. Maybe a bit more than a hookup. Maybe they’d been together, on and off, for about a goddamn decade.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t out to Dean. It wasn’t that Dean denied it, either, and he’d even played wingman for Sam, helping him seal the deal with prospective one night stands of various genders. It was just that the women Sam liked usually spurred a wink-wink-nudge-nudge treatment from Dean, and being kind of a dumb hetero, he sometimes had to literally walk in on Sam getting fucked in the ass to get it through his thick skull that Sam and his ‘new friend’ weren’t just watching movies and sharing a beer in the motel room Sam’d told Dean to maybe not come back to for a couple hours.

Cas and Sam had enough time alone over the years, however, that so long as neither of them said anything, Dean might never realize. And that… that was just fine. Really. It wasn’t like it was going anywhere, anymore, anyway - it’d been quite a while since that spark last fired and maybe it was better to maintain the status quo of their three way, entirely platonic, dynamic.

Especially since Cas had broken it off abruptly, and without giving Sam any reason in particular. He’d suggested taking a break and never mentioned it again. Just as he was verging on becoming the love of Sam’s damn life, too. But Sam was over it. He was doing his best to be over it. He’d be over it _eventually._

Far be it from him to force Cas to do anything he didn’t want to do just to spare his own feelings.

The other very, very important thing that Dean didn’t know - that neither Dean, nor Cas, could _ever_ know - was that a fair amount of Sam’s free time had long been spent on writing, publishing, and promoting the works of one Irma Allen.

* * *

It had been a word document buried twelve folders deep in his hard drive. It started as journalling - a way to get out some emotions about the whole thing, to use that 20/20 hindsight to figure out exactly what happened and maybe take a few baby steps towards forgiving himself for the parts that weren’t his fault. It wasn’t supposed to have detailed sex scenes, for crying out loud. And it wasn’t meant to snowball into a 300 page manuscript.

Sam could have left it alone. Let it be 300 pages of angsty nonsense that eventually faded into the digital void and was never read by a soul.

But…

But it was the age of paranormal romance, after all. Twilight wasn’t all that far in the pop culture’s rearview mirror, and people were making real money publishing ebooks for niche markets like that. And the thought of putting all that time and effort into something only he’d ever know existed just felt wrong, somehow.

He’d seen the fanfiction. People he didn’t know were masturbating to his trauma already - why not make a couple bucks off of it?

Sam re-wrote the entire manuscript, with names and details changed, rough spots smoothed over. He double checked that it didn’t explicitly invite a cease and desist from Chuck’s publisher. He shelled out the cash for a professional copy editor, and Irma Allen self-published her first book before the year was out.

Then the Goodreads and Amazon reviews started trickling in, and whether it was validation for his work, or for ‘Jason’s’ struggles, something about putting it all out there made Sam feel _good._ Like writing those little stories for Jess had done, way back when he’d still known what ‘good’ felt like. Somebody was made happier by reading something he’d created, and loved the characters he’d poured himself into. It was an incredible high.

And Sam wanted more of it.

After _The Demon Dealer,_ there was _The Heart of the Wolf,_ with a reassuringly ambiguous ending tacked on, rather than the depressing truth. Then _Siren Song,_ both his first gay story and his first near-entirely fictional one, in which he reworked the sequence of events to give Jason, rather than Daniel, the hypothetical chance to bang the monster posing as an FBI agent. They garnered enough attention that a little online publisher, Sarah Mallory from Starlight Publishing, reached out and asked to add Irma’s books to her line, to promote them, and offer hard copies.

Contiguous to the writing of the first three books, was the slow and difficult battle of _Demon Dealer’_ s direct sequel, _The Fallen Angel._

 _The Fallen Angel_ took its leave from reality not for copyright or privacy reasons, but for Sam’s sanity. Jason and Daniel fought vague, poorly defined enemies, damage and death would happen off screen rather than before Jason’s eyes, and while Jason would give his life to trap the devil, it would work the first time. No long, painful possession - Sam couldn’t parse through those memories too carefully without stumbling into dark thoughts and sleepless nights.

It took years to write. It was something Sam had to drag, kicking and screaming, out of himself. He’d stare at the word document for ages, unsure of how to continue when he hit feelings and traumas he didn’t know how to talk about. He’d delete scenes that he couldn’t justify not keeping private. He took long breaks to cope when he got too close to the core of it. Draft after draft, he found his balance - to release the pain of being so used by the devil, and to receive the balm of Castiel’s love on the open wound.

Jason held a violent, screaming force of a being inside his body, shook with the effort of maintaining his control. He looked at his brother and his lover, both for the last time, and then Jason jumped.

And then the book was over.

It felt good to be finished. It felt good to express, even just to himself, how much those events made him hurt, when there’d been no time or place when they were actually happening to do anything but bottle it up and keep fighting. It felt good to know that, even anonymously, his feelings would be heard. No consequences, just release. Catharsis.

There were two more ‘Cassiel’ books after that, trading off in the publishing order with tales of Jason’s various other (largely fictional) love interests - _Saving Souls,_ which detailed Jason and Cassiel’s hard won reunion, betrayal, and reunion again, and _Clipped Wings,_ in which Cassiel became human after losing his grace, allowing a deepening of their relationship as Cass learned to be vulnerable and dependent on those he loved. _Holy Hell,_ a three quarters finished manuscript that was Sam’s current focus, would see them weather a war for the throne of Hell, helping each other cope as they’re forced to save Daniel from himself.

* * *

With this most recent development, however, it seemed Sam may be forced to murder his brother to keep his secret, and that he’d be publishing _Holy Hell_ from prison.

“This is based on The Winchester Gospels?” Cas asked. With the horrible vision on the laptop’s screen all Sam’s, Cas looked to Dean for answers.

“Chuck’s books?” Dean asked. “Yeah, I guess. He wrote stuff between you dragging me outta hell and Sam stopping the apocalypse, but they weren’t published as books, just posted online.”

Cas reached over and turned the laptop back to himself, shaking Sam out of his staring contest with the screen, and brought him mentally crashing back into the room.

Castiel began clicking around the website, and the cold horror gave way to panic. _Oh, no,_ Sam though. It was one thing to know one book based on Chuck’s work existed. But Cas was researching _Sam,_ then, without knowing it. No matter how well hidden his secret identity, how well chosen and anonymous the pen name, there was a shuddering dread that Cas would stumble across too much, something too revealing.

“She’s published other books, though,” Cas said, eyes scanning back and forth across what Sam assumed were the blurbs plastered across the publisher’s website. “Several, in fact. Are they all like this?”

Dean leaned in and began reading over Cas’ shoulder. “Book One, _The Demon Dealer._ Book Two, _The Heart of the Wolf. Siren Song, The Fallen Angel, Saving Souls, The Witch’s Bargain, Clipped Wings, Hear No Evil…”_

Sam sunk further into his seat as his brother read each title aloud. Oh _God._

“And preorder _Holy Hell,_ out this fall!” Dean finished, with a put-upon, sarcastically cheery salesman voice. “Nine books, and they’re all about Jason Singer boning his way through the underworld.”

In any other situation, Sam would have expected Cas to be confused, or mildly put off by Dean’s crude description. But Cas just kept his eyes locked in on the screen, squinting at it as if he needed reading glasses, a look of creeping concern etched onto his face.

“They’re not prohibitively expensive,” he said. “Would it be alright if I ordered them to your P.O. box?”

“What?” Sam and Dean asked in unison, though with very different tones, and for very different reasons.

Startled by the reaction, Cas blinked up at each brother in turn, then explained carefully. “I’m concerned,” he said. “If you two have no objections, I’d like to read at least a few of them.”

“Cas, I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Sam said, jumping to dissuade him. “It’s just fanfiction. There’s worse online.”

Dean scoffed, and nodded in agreement. “ _So much_ worse,” he said. They’d both like to forget some of the things they’d read when they’d first heard of _Supernatural._

“Kevin is dead,” Cas said. “We should be on the lookout for new prophets.”

“But Irma Allen has been publishing since before he died - long before,” Sam said.

Cas shot him a side eye. Dean, too, went quiet for just just a moment.

“You familiar with her work, Sam?” Dean asked.

Oh, fuck. “The page you just showed me said 2014, right? And it’s not the first book in the series? So unless she published four novels that year...”

Dean didn’t push his suspicions - thank God. He heaved a sigh, turned his eyes back to the screen. “Sam’s right, Cas, I don’t think you’re gonna find much - besides, do real, not-God-in-disguise prophets even do this kinda thing?”

Castiel turned his trademarked suspicious squint on Dean. “Who do you thing wrote the _scripture,_ Dean?” He asked. “The Torah, the Bible, the Quran… they didn’t spring up, fully formed, from the ground, someone had to take dictation.”

Dean gave an exasperated sigh and threw his hands up. “Jeez, Cas, fine,” he said. “Knock yourself out.”

He slapped the laptop lid shut, and whisked it away as he went back to his room.

* * *

Cas made the trek into town with the mailbox key, all on his own, about a week later, and came home with a cardboard box full of eight neatly bound new paperbacks.

Sam locked himself in his room and stared at _Holy Hell’_ s word document without making any progress whatsoever.

The first two days mostly just involved Castiel reading in the library, the map room, the kitchen, floating like a ghost through the bunker with his eyes on a page and his mind a million miles away.

Two or three times each of those first days, a book would disappear from the open cardboard box on one of the library’s sturdy tables, and another would be added to the meager pile beside it, spine cracked and pages earmarked, occasional scribbles of ink in the margins or between paragraphs.

Sam even caught Dean skimming one of the paperbacks on the second day, while standing in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee maker, an exaggerated look of disgust on his face.

“What?” Sam asked, against his better judgement, as he opened the fridge in search of some juice.

Dean raised the book to indicate the cover - black and red, this time, again decorated with disembodied, suggestive stretches of skin. “The siren one,” Dean said.

Sam pulled his own face of discomfort. “It may not be true, but you don’t have to be so grossed out. It’s just gay sex.”

“It’s not the gay sex, it’s the _monster_ doing gay sex with my _brother,”_ Dean said, like the words kind of hurt coming out of his mouth. He turned his eyes back to the page. “If it helps my PFLAG standings, the Ruby one is equally gross.”

Sam poured himself a glass of orange juice and tried to tell himself those scenes could be written by William Shakespeare and Dean would still be grossed out. It wasn’t a literary review.

“You’re the world’s foremost ally,” Sam deadpanned. He returned the juice carton to the fridge, and left before Dean could finish the page and come up with some other lame comeback.

It wasn’t until the third day that Sam ran into Cas in the hallway, clutching his battered copy of _The Fallen Angel_ and looking for all the world like whatever he needed to discuss was a matter of life and death. Cas blocked Sam’s path to the gym, and wasted no time with pleasantries.

“We need to talk about these books,” he said.

“What?” Sam said, taken aback. He’d been expecting this, eventually, sure, but the ambush that came along with it put him on the back foot.

“They worry me,” Cas said. “There are conversations in this book that are almost word-for-word. It can’t be a coincidence.”

Sam opened his mouth to speak, realized he had no believable reaction to that, and shut his mouth again. “Um…” he eventually mumbled. “That’s… wild.”

“It’s very wild,” Cas said, tone and face grave. “This Irma Allen, she can’t just be a fan of Chuck’s works. She knows too much.”

“Okay,” Sam said dumbly.

“We need to find her and stop her writing these terrible books.”

“Wait, what?” Sam sputtered. He tried to put aside the judgement call in that statement and focus on the ‘needing to find her’ part. “Cas, c’mon. She’s not hurting anybody, is she? Chuck sold our story, too, and we lived with that.“

“Chuck had a reason to know these things,” Cas said. “Allen could have any of a number of supernatural sources. She could be a prophet, maybe, but she could also be a psychic, a spy, a witch…”

“Who uses insider information about _us,_ of all people, to write smutty ebooks?” Sam barely contained an incredulous laugh.

Cas’ look of concerned turned to a glare. “You’re not worried about this at all?”

Sam could only sigh and shrug, half a smile still on his face.

“What about--” Cas began, and then cut himself off to drop his voice low, as if he was worried about being spied on in that very moment. “What about your privacy, Sam? These aren’t wholesome, epic adventures - they’re pornographic. I’m not comfortable knowing that someone was _watching_ you and I in… in those private moments.”

Before Sam could think of a counter, Cas flipped quickly, deftly, through the paperback in his hands. He selected a dog eared passage near the end of the book, and began to read.

“ _Cassiel’s hand was in Jason’s hair, his breath hot and loud in Jason’s ear. Chest to chest, their body heat pooled together through the thin layer of their shirts, and--”_

“Okay, okay!” Sam shouted. “Okay, I get it.” He found he wasn’t a fan of hearing Cas read his work - let alone his descriptions of their sex, with such contempt in his voice. Especially a scene that had meant so much to him - the final hours that he and Cas (and therefore, Jason and Cass) had been alone together, after a day of collecting demon blood and before an evening of trying to enjoy his final hours with his family, and Dean in particular. It hurt to feel like it was being mocked, though he knew Cas wasn’t mocking _him,_ and his feelings, at least not intentionally.

“They aren’t just sexual moments - they’re emotionally intimate conversations,” Cas said. “They’re things neither of us would have said with an audience.”

Sam sighed. “I know, Cas. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Cas softened. “I don’t want you to tell me anything,” he said. “I just want to... To protect us. To protect _you.”_

Before Sam could come up with an answer - before he could even really decide how he felt about it - he heard footsteps from around the corner, and his fight-or-flight response kicked in.

“Shh,” Sam hissed, touching Cas’ arm, and let Cas follow his eyeline to the end of the hall.

Dean popped his head around the corner. “What are you two arguing about in here?” He asked.

“The Irma Allen books,” Castiel said, without hesitation or tact, and something gripped Sam’s heart as he realized Cas might not realize that this wasn’t a conversation he wanted Dean looped in on. Their understanding that they hadn’t yet told Dean specifically because it wasn’t important might not stick if Cas felt these books had made it need-to-know information. “They’re not just fanfiction, Dean. There are details included that weren’t in Chuck’s works.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean asked, wandering towards them.

Sam turned to stop Cas, as if he had any way to do so at that point, as if it wasn’t already too late. His heartbeat was hammering in his chest, and Sam was half sure it must have been loud enough for Cas to hear, if not Dean. To his immense relief, however, Cas’ thumb slipped out from between the pages detailing the flowery, ‘last night on earth’ sex, and he turned the pages to find another sequence earlier in the book.

“References to events from your childhood, conversations, tiny little details,” Castiel listed off. “Look.” He bent back the spine to expose the pages he’d been searching for, and turned it around, offering it up to Dean.

Dean took the book and started to read. “Phone rings… heya Jay…” he muttered to himself as he read. Recognition slowly spread across his features. “Okay, that’s…”

“It’s the phone call you made after returning from the apocalypse future that Zachariah sent you to,” Cas said. “It isn’t word for word, but to my memory, it’s more than close enough to warrant looking into.”

“And this wasn’t in Chuck’s version?” Dean asked.

Castiel nodded. “I checked,” he said. “The unpublished novel _The End_ follows you, not Sam, and Chuck doesn’t describe the call in any detail.”

Dean squinted down at the book, reading slowly down the highlighted page. “Jeez,” he muttered to himself as he read. “So what, the book are true? I know for a damn fact they aren’t - stuff I was _there for,_ even if you two’d been sneaking off to bone.”

“The stories are from Sam’s perspective,” Cas interjected. “I.. I admit, they’re not exactly infallible, but there might be a lot more truth to them than you realize, simply because you’re not in every scene. There are entire books you’re hardly in.”

Dean laughed to himself, almost bitterly. “Yeah, sure, Sam’s been fucking everything with a pulse and I just never noticed,” he said.

“That’s not what he meant!” Sam snapped. “There’s stuff that’s not true. Like basically all the sex stuff. Ruby and Maddison are the _only_ two subjects of these books that I did _anything_ with, and--”

“Okay!” Dean shouted, cutting Sam off. He slapped the book shut and shoved it into Sam’s hands. “Super fake. I get it.”

“It’s a _fetish,”_ Sam said, forcing his voice to level out, but something in his chest was still hot, and tight. “It’s not my _life._ Right, Cas?”

Sam turned to the angel, looking for backup - someone to give him an alibi for all the nights described in _The Fallen Angel_ and the other Cassiel books, for all the times they’d been alone together. A false alibi, sure, but one he figured they’d implicitly agreed on years ago. Castiel, however, seemed mildly taken aback. He blinked at Sam for just an instant before seeming to pull himself together, clear his throat, and then, at last, he responded, addressing himself toward Dean.

“Of course,” he said. “The, uh, ‘love scenes’ are fictitious, of course. But that doesn’t change the fact that Allen knows more than anyone but Sam really should.”

Oh, no. What was that look?

Dean rubbed the back of his neck, deep in thought. “And we know Sam didn’t write them,” he said, half to himself, and Sam had to hold back something between a chuckle and a sob. “What are we thinking, then? Prophet?”

“A psychic is possible, but unlikely, and if she’s a prophet, then ‘Irma Allen’ has to be a pseudonym, or I’d have known about her,” Castiel said. “I’m not sure the timelines for a prophet line up. It seems to me that someone is deliberately watching us, and I doubt it’s in good faith.”

“If she knew this much about us, there are far more dangerous things she could have done with that information,” Sam offered. It was a weak excuse, he knew. He doubted they’d be dropping the subject no matter what mitigating circumstances he suggested.

“I don’t know, man,” Dean said. “I still don’t like it. I think Cas is right on this one, we should be keeping this chick on our radar.”

“It’d be the safest course of action,” Cas said. “I’d like to start investigating as soon as possible.”

“Go on ahead, Sherlock,” Dean said, turning to leave. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas said, and with a nod, Dean was back off down the hall, and Sam didn’t have a single excuse, not a spark of an idea that might stop whatever was about to happen next.

For lack of a way to convince Castiel to give it up, knowing it was futile, Sam just turned back towards his room, abandoning his plans at the gym. “I’ll just, uh…” he said, gesturing back down the hall.

“Sam?”

He paused. Looking back again to Cas, he found him searching - not just concerned, and not just _about_ Sam, but _with_ Sam.

“Yeah?” Sam asked. His voice was probably about as steady as he felt - which wasn’t very.

Cas opened his mouth to speak, and took just a split second too long to make the words come out for Sam to believe that what he was thinking in that moment and what he finally said were one and the same.

“May I have that back?” Castiel asked, gesturing to the paperback book Sam had in a death grip. Sam had forgotten he’d even been the one holding it.

“Oh, yeah,” Sam said, catching himself. “Of course.” He handed the book over, and when Castiel didn’t engage any further, he fled back to his room, to cower in fear of what he hadn’t been able to hide.

* * *

_"Sue me, Jason, I don’t exactly wanna get buddy buddy with winged assholes who could turn me to dust on a whim,” Rose spat. “I’m a demon. They live to destroy things like me.”_

_“I’m not saying I trust them,” Jason said, sitting down on the foot of the bed. “I don’t think even Daniel trusts them, and he’s the one they actually seem to like.”_

_Rose paced the motel room as they talked, from the door to the far wall and back again, the hard heels of her boots muffled on the thin, rough carpet. Her arms were folded tight across her chest. Jason was getting stressed out just watching her._

_“Would you sit down?” He asked._

_She stopped pacing - small blessings - and turned to him, short fuse evidently lit. “Don’t kid yourself that they see you any differently,” she said, with venom in her voice._

_“They don’t seem that bad,” Jason said, but stopped himself, taking a moment to think and qualify the statement. “At least, the one Daniel’s been hanging out with seemed okay. Cassiel.”_

_Rose scoffed. “He’s no better than Zuriel. Just waiting for an excuse to get rid of us.”_

_Jason looked up at her, with soft, hurt eyes. “I don’t think so. Yes, he knows I’m not--” Jason fell short, tilted his head as he swallowed the truth everyone but Rose always seemed to dance around. “He knows I’m not normal. But he shook my hand anyway. He didn’t find me disgusting like Zuriel did.”_

_Rose sighed. She made her way over to stand between Jason’s legs, and ran her fingers through his hair, gently tugging out a stray tangle. “You don’t need people who tolerate your dirty little secret, Jason,” she said. “You need people who are gonna help you use the gifts you’ve been given. Organic, non-GMO human or not.”_

_“I just thought they’d be different,” Jason said quietly. “I can’t believe that’s what I’ve been praying to all these years.”_

_Pushing his hair off his face, Rose leaned down to kiss him on the cheek._

_“Prayer is overrated,” she said, and moved her mouth to his._

-excerpt from _The Demon Dealer_ by Irma Allen

* * *

He hid from Cas for longer than he’d like to admit.

In fairness, he didn’t like to admit he was hiding from Cas at all, but there were some things about which he couldn’t even delude himself.

Irrationally, Sam felt like if he hid physically from Castiel, he could keep from being found out on a philosophical level, too. And being outed as the man behind Irma Allen would be disastrous - he could feel it in his bones. It was to be avoided at all costs.

Because first there would be the mockery. Dean calling him names mean enough to annoy him, but stopping shy of real injury. Castiel, on the other hand - and this was the worst part - Cas would not join in. He’d understand a few of the jokes, maybe, but he wouldn’t find them funny.

Castiel is the one he’d fucked up by writing about. Sam hadn’t thought all that hard about it at the time, maybe wouldn’t have published _The Fallen Angel_ if he had. The only other subjects of the kinda-true books were both long dead, had already had their sex lives written about by Chuck, and didn’t need their feelings or privacy protected in the same way. He hadn’t had to worry about it - so when it came to Cas, he hadn’t realized he should. He hadn’t stopped to consider that there was any kind of privacy to violate - or maybe he was just too used to having his own violated to realize it was a problem.

And in Sam’s defense, not many people read his books to begin with - just a couple thousand readers world wide per book, on average. The odds that minuscule number would ever crossover with anybody who’d ever met him or Cas had been astronomical.

And _yet._

So when it all came out, Sam thought, over several long, dull days of sitting alone in his room, trying to pretend he wasn’t having a low-and-slow kind of panic attack, Castiel was going to ask him why, and he wouldn’t have an answer, and Castiel was going to feel exposed, and Castiel was not going to forgive him.

Worse, Cas was going to have an open window into Sam’s head, his thoughts and feelings, every doubt he’d ever had about Cas and every single fucking time his thoughts had been less than platonic. Because for all that they’d had some time together, sure, had had some sex, it wasn’t like Cas really wanted him like that. Not anymore, anyway.

Sam sat on his bed with his laptop on his lap, typing and deleting and re-typing snatches of prose. “Jason” was watching “Cassiel” sleep, and bemoaning, in his internal monologue, how sleep was so unsettling to see in an angel, an indication that something was horribly wrong, despite how peaceful Cass seemed. Typing, deleting, re-typing. Something about the scene felt voyeuristic to Sam. Maybe the entire venture just felt voyeuristic, now that it was prose Castiel would probably see, instead of an ode to a former lover Sam released into the void of the internet one or twice a year.

He picked up his coffee cup from the nightstand, not taking his eyes away from his computer screen, and sucked in a mouthful of cold, milky yuck. The shock of the cold coffee - maybe, in part, the shock of realizing he’d been struggling with the words long enough for the drink to have gone cold - shook Sam out of the trance of the LED display.

He forced himself to swallow the mouthful. He didn’t gag, but not without effort.

Sam closed the laptop’s lid and tossed it to the opposite side of the bed, stretching his limbs and back out as he stood up after a few solid hours in one position. Cold coffee, of course, called for a refill.

By the time Sam made it far enough into the kitchen’s doorway to realize that Castiel was sitting at the table, it was too late - he’d been spotted.

“Hello, Sam,” Cas said, casually enough to imply he hadn’t noticed Sam’s avoidance of him the past few days, but not casually enough that Sam was willing to bet on it. He was surrounded by stacks of paperback novels, little piles of highlighters and note paper, and in the middle, his own mug of coffee - a little indulgence Cas had come to enjoy on Earth.

“Hey, Cas,” Sam returned. He felt his mouth pull back in an uncomfortable half-smile before he moved past Cas to make a beeline for the coffee machine, where he found a good, warm half pot waiting.

Sam dumped his old coffee into the sink and picked up the new pot. “Would you like to know how the search for Irma Allen is going?” Cas asked.

The answer was no, but Sam wasn’t exactly going to say that to Castiel’s face.

“Sure,” Sam replied, filling his mug.

“There are just over two hundred Irma Allens living in the continental United States,” Cas began. “We of course have no guarantee that’s where she’s living, but it seemed like a good place to start. Several nurses, real estate agents, etcetera.”

He wanted to bail right away, to leave the room and go back into hiding until the world inevitably came crashing down around him, but Cas sounded like he was going into a long winded explanation. Sam took a deep breath, braced himself, and sat down at the kitchen table across from the angel.

“I haven’t been able to track all of them down, unfortunately, and it’s entirely possible the Irma Allen we’re looking for has no online presence besides promoting her books,” Castiel said. “And I can, of course, extend my search to Hawaii, Alaska, and then other English speaking regions, but…”

“But it could also be a pen name,” Sam sighed. “Nobody who writes erotica uses their legal name.”

Cas hummed in agreement, turning his eyes to his notepad and getting lost in some thought or another. “This angle isn’t exactly exhausted, but it may not be the most efficient use of my time,” he said.

Sam lifted his mug to his lips, watching Cas carefully over the rim. “So?” He asked. “What’s next?”

“I’m searching the books again for any clues as to her personal details - regional colloquialisms, for instance,” Cas explained. “The publisher may be an angle, probably a more direct one, but I assume they’ll put up at least a token protest to exposing one of their most successful authors, so I’d like to go in well informed.”

“Hm,” Sam hummed noncommittally.

Cas turned to him, looking up from his work and wrinkling his brow. “You seem uneasy,” he said.

Sam sighed. “Yeah, I just, uh,” he said. “Something about it just doesn’t sit right with me, you know?”

“The books?” Cas asked. “Or the things the books might reveal?”

Sam nodded. “Exactly.”

“You _were_ rather emotional the other day,” Cas admitted. “Circumstances have changed over the years, of course, but I have to say, I didn’t think you were much the secret keeping kind these days.”

Sam sighed and leaned back from the table to rub at his face. “Yeah,” he breathed. “About that.”

“I know we’re not… we never talked about it with Dean…” Castiel said. “But maybe we should. It seems pertinent.”

“What difference does it make?” Sam asked. “Half the books are fake anyway--”

“Are they?” Castiel asked. Sam looked up at him and found in his face an honest question.

Sam sputtured. “I… Yes!” He said, the word tumbling out of his mouth like they couldn’t get out fast enough. “Not the Cassiel ones, not the one about Ruby or the one about the werewolf girl, but the rest are 100% bullshit, Cas. I swear.”

Cas’ brows knit together. “I’m only asking, Sam,” he said.

“Let him think they’re three quarters fake instead of a third, is all,” Sam finished. “Look, I’m not ashamed of you, Cas, it’s just that… it’s just that it’s all in the past, right? It’d make it so awkward for him-- and for you, for that matter.”

Cas was already looking away from Sam, back down towards his books and notes.

“Is that… is that okay?” Sam asked.

Cas looked back up at him - with what appeared to be something of a struggle. “Of course, Sam,” he said. “You have as much right to privacy as anyone.”

“Okay,” Sam said, speaking slowly, though not measured in his words. “Okay. As long as we’re good. I’d hate for you to feel like--”

“I understand completely, Sam,” Cas said, voice as steady as stone.

“Great,” Sam said. He felt the same unconscious, uncomfortable half smile creep onto his face again. He stood from the stool. “Okay, Cas. I’ll see you later.”

Cas’ nose was back in his book before Sam even finished speaking. Sam left without either man saying another word.

* * *

Sam decided somewhere along the way that if he was going to finish _Holy Hell,_ it would the final book in the Jason Singer series, and that he’d have to finish it _soon._

He could publish it, break his ties with the publisher, leave it out there and delete ‘Irma’s’ entire online presence. He could even, if necessary, remove the other eight books from sale - the literary equivalent of rolling over and showing his belly, hoping it’ll make Cas give up the search.

He just wanted to give it an ending. He just wanted to _finish._ He couldn’t leave his readers at the end of _Clipped Wings_ \- they cared too much about Jason and Cassiel to see their story end in only in another round of suffering. That wasn’t why Sam had fallen in love with the genre, and he couldn’t betray that love in his own final story, if that’s what _Holy Hell_ was to be.

No, Sam decided. He’d come up with something to wrap the story up. _Holy Hell_ could end it properly, with a  happy - or at least satisfying - ending.

And so, Sam had inadvertently put himself in a race with Castiel - to finish his book before Castiel found him out. Made that much more difficult by how hard it had become to focus on writing in the time he could take for himself, to be alone and work on his secret project, without raising suspicion.

He was sitting at the little desk in his room, fidgeting with a pencil, when a little red circle popped up in the corner of his screen. Sam clicked over to his personal email, found nothing new, and instead took a look at his _other_ email account.

 

_From: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_To: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_Subject: fwd: attn: Irma Allen_

_Ms. Allen,_

_I hope it’s not too direct to email you - I’m a big fan of your work. Your books are among my favourites. The characters are so very vivid and relatable. I’m very fond of your main “angels and demons” storyline, but the stand alone novels are also really enjoyable. While reading your books, I found I had questions about your stories and your process. Since you’re a smaller author (by which I mean no offense - the Jason Singer series is not in any sense common or dim, but rather a hidden gem) I wondered if you might have time to discuss these things with a fan and answer a couple questions._

_Hoping to hear back from you,_

_Mike_

 

Sam read the email over a few times. It was incredibly awkward, truly. Overly polite, overly formal. Structurally stunted. But… earnest, he guessed. Not asking much. He figured it couldn’t really hurt to entertain the idea.

He clicked “reply” and put his fingers to the keys.

 

_From: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_Subject: re: attn: Irma Allen_

_Hi Mike,_

_Thanks for your kind words about my books! It’s always great to hear from a reader, don’t worry._

_What sort of questions do you have? I’m not sure I can help you much, my “process” isn’t especially complex, but I if have answers for you, I’d be happy to share them._

_Best wishes,_

_Irma Allen_

 

Send.

Sam tapped his way back over to his word processor, and valiantly fought the urge to surf the net instead of continuing to battle his own brain over this scene. ‘Process’, Mike had said. Sam could have laughed. His ‘process’ consisted entirely of spitting words out and letting his editor tell him what to change.

His email application pinged again, though, only a few minutes later. Welcoming the distraction, he rushed to read the new message.

 

_From: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_To: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_Subject: re: attn: Irma Allen_

_Ms. Allen,_

_Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly! And thank you for offering to hear my questions._

_I suppose my biggest question is where do you get your ideas from? I know ideas are such a stumbling block for many authors, but you publish more frequently than most. How do you come up with them all?_ _  
_ _Also, I admit this is more personal, but I’m curious - your descriptions of life in rural America are stunning. Are you from the Midwest yourself?_

_Thanks again,_

_Mike_

 

_From: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_Subject: re: attn: Irma Allen_

_Hi Mike,_

_No problem! Ideas are kind of a hard thing to describe. They’re just kind of there, you know? A little personal experience, a little fantasy (of course). Jason’s been somebody I’ve lived with all my life, in a sense, and everything else just kind of happened to him along the way. Sorry I can’t be more helpful - like I said, my “process” isn’t especially complex or artful._

_I’ve spent time all across the US, yes, and travel a lot for my day job. I do live in what you might call a fly-over state._

_Best Wishes,_

_Irma Allen_

 

The second reply came as quick as the first.

 

_From: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_To: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_Subject: re: attn: Irma Allen_

_Ms. Allen,_

_May I ask which state? Jason and Mark seem not to use too many colloquialisms - where are they from?_

_Mike_

 

_From: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: mike.g5231@gmail.com_

_Subject: re: attn: Irma Allen_

_Hi Mike,_

_I don’t feel comfortable divulging my personal information, sorry. As you can imagine, writing erotica is something I like to keep separate from my IRL reputation. I hope you can understand._

_Jason and Daniel were born in Kansas._

_Irma_

 

Sam was starting to feel the need to back off. He’d exchanged emails with readers before. It wasn’t common, but it wasn’t _unheard of._ But that last reply had felt like fishing, a little too to-the-point. Either some guy (like many guys, Sam had learned since taking on a feminine identity online) was gunning for a date in the world’s least practical way, because anyone can feel like a Cassanova when a girl humours him on the internet, or…

His email pinged once again.

 _I understand,_ ‘Mike’ wrote. _Please know I’m only interested because the visuals you describe in your books are so vivid, and…_

Sam fished his phone out of his pocket, and composed his latest reply with his mobile email app. A couple short lines. Just a quick “okay, but I’m still not giving you my address, dude,” just a bit more verbose. More in Irma’s speech patterns. More polite, certainly.

Then Sam locked down his laptop, stood up, and walked out of his room and down the hall. He followed the hall all the way to the library, where he found Castiel squinting at his phone, notepad still at his elbow, clearly referring again to the notes he’d previously made from the books.

Sam tapped ‘send,’ and slid his phone into his pocket as he walked into the room.

Cas looked up, recognized he was no longer alone, and opened his mouth to greet Sam before his phone pinged, and his eyes shot back down to the screen.

 _Ah,_ Sam thought.

“Keepin’ busy?” Sam asked.

“I, um…” It took Castiel a minute to shake his preoccupation with his phone and answer the question, though he seemed to be trying to type and talk at the same time. “Yes. Yes, I’m exchanging emails with her right now.”

“Oh, wow,” Sam said, doing his best ‘mildly impressed’ look. “You found her already?”

“I found her email,” Cas corrected him. “She’s being unhelpful.”

Sam sighed. “Well… keep up the good work, Cas,” he said, and, with a reassuring smile, he turned to go back to his room.

He deleted all the remaining, increasingly frustrated emails he received from ‘Mike’ for the rest of the day.

Should have just trusted his gut.

* * *

Castiel must have waited for Irma’s reponse all night and all the next day, because Sam watched from afar as Cas became increasingly agitated. His eyes flicked to his phone about every three minutes, and when he wasn’t sulking, he just seemed so exhausted. It gave Sam a heck of a guilt trip.

But some frustration now would save a lot of betrayal later, Sam reminded himself. Better, of course, for Cas not to know, and better not to send him on a wild goose chase with lies, either. Better to just let the leads fizzle out, until the search became impossible to sustain.

Cas waited for a reply through the evening, and the entire next day, and when Sam awoke the following morning, he wandered into the common areas only to find Cas at the map table, stuffing an old backpack of Sam’s with all of his many books and notes.

Sam slowed his step as he came into the library, looking across the threshold to the scene at the map table.

“Are you going somewhere?” Sam asked.

Cas looked up from his packing just long enough to acknowledge Sam, before he returned to his task. “Yes,” he said. “I’ve done all I can from here. My next step has to be finding the publisher, as you and Dean did in your search for Chuck.”

An icy little bolt of fear struck Sam, and he forced it down. Sarah - the one woman army behind Starlight Publishing - didn’t know much more than Castiel had already figured out, but it sparked panic in him all the same.

More than that - this was getting out of hand. _This_ was the wild goose chase Sam had been trying to prevent.

“Cas, you really don’t have to do that,” he pleaded. “She’s not worth it.”

Castiel looked up again, confused, almost in disbelief. “I don’t understand,” he said.

“She’s not hurting anybody,” Sam said.

“We don’t know that she _won’t,”_ Cas replied. “Intentionally or not.”

“I doubt it,” Sam said, exasperated.

Cas’ expression, if anything, became more intensely critical. “Do you not want me to find this woman?” He asked. “Truthfully, Sam, what reason could you possibly have to protect her?”

“I want not to be worrying about something that isn’t a problem!” Sam said, raising his voice. He’d lost his composure all but entirely. “I want _you_ not to be under stress over some stupid stories! Is it really the spying you’re worried about, or are you just upset that this time it’s your dirty laundry, too?”

“How could--” Cas cut himself off. With a subtle, blink-and-you-miss-it glance to the hallway, he chose to close some of the distance between them, stepping forward and dropping his voice. “Sam, _you_ decided you wanted what happened to stay between us. My own involvement is inconsequential - I’m trying to protect and respect _your_ choice.”

“I don’t need you to protect it,” Sam replied, in a harsh whisper. “My _choice_ is that I want to _leave it alone.”_

“You haven’t given me one good reason--” Cas began, but Sam cut him off.

“I don’t need a reason!” Sam spat. “Hell, here’s one: This is nothing new, and I’m tired of fighting losing battles against being treated like a body with no person inside only for you to plot a damn _crusade_ against the one person that actually gets me right.”

That shocked Castiel, made him take a very literal step back, and his face shifted from frustration back into confusion. “I… what?”

“These books aren’t some idiot smashing two Ken dolls together,” Sam said. “I _like_ seeing that somebody understands that who we are isn’t secondary to sex.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better about being spied on,” Cas said.

“Okay!” Sam said. “I can understand that! Do whatever you need to do, Cas. But don’t pretend it’s for me!”

“What the fuck, guys?” Dean asked, raising his voice to be heard over their shouting. “What’s your problem?”

Sam and Cas’ eyes both snapped towards the elder Winchester, who was standing in the doorway with a set of car keys in his hand.

Castiel sighed, disengaging from Sam entirely. “Are those mine?” He asked, walking towards Dean. “Which vehicle am I in?”

He reached for the keys, but Dean jerked them away before Cas could take them.

“No, seriously, you two have been _fucking weird_ since these books came up,” Dean said. _“What_ do you need to deal with for you to chill the fuck out?”

Cas looked chastised, seemed to forcibly calm himself. “I’m sorry, Dean,” he said, voice steady, but with a sharp edge under the words. “This situation has been stressful for Sam and I and we can’t seem to agree on how to cope. That’s all.”

Dean watched him carefully for a moment, then turned his attention to Sam. Under Dean’s gaze, Sam, too, felt somewhat chastised. He averted his eyes.

“Yeah,” was all Sam said.

“I should be going,” Castiel said quietly, and this time, Dean allowed him to take the keys.

Cas backed away from Dean, returned to the table to put the last of his things in the backpack, and hefted it over his shoulder.

“It’s the pickup,” Dean said, and without another word, Cas pushed past him and walked off towards the garage. Sam watched him go, feeling cold.

Dean gave him a look, painfully soft and concerned. Sam hated it.

“It’s fine,” he said, and left the room, back to his self imposed isolation.

* * *

_There’d been very few words spoken since they’d returned from Missouri. True to character, Daniel had played strong and silent in the face of loss, and Bill crawled into the bottle right alongside him. It was a true hunter’s wake - or as best as could be done with so few survivors and no bodies left to burn. Jason had no right to break the delicate veil of silence that kept the Pandora’s box of heartache locked up._

_Or, at least, he didn’t feel like he did._

_Retreating upstairs to the guest bedroom, the same bedroom he and Daniel had shared as kids, when Bill was “Uncle Billy” and Dad needed a babysitter, made him feel small, like a child again. Hiding from the pain, and the delicate powder keg of grief downstairs, he just wanted to curl up in bed and cry at how trapped he felt. In that way, nothing much had changed since he was eight or nine years old. Only now, it wasn’t just him facing the consequences, and he wouldn’t get out of it just by aging out from under his father’s thumb, and the stakes were oh, so much higher. Not just trapped - Jason was helpless._

_“Are you alright?”_

_The voice startled Jason. He’d zoned out, evidently, staring at the wallpaper, and when he turned, there was Cassiel standing in the doorway, exhaustion and concern on his face._

_“No,” Jason admitted weakly. He had no energy left for platitudes and stiff upper lips._

_Cassiel looked down at his shoes. “Of course,” he said. “Of course you aren’t. I’m sorry.”_

_“It’s okay,” Jason said. “I appreciate the asking, anyway. What about you?”_

_“What about me?” Cass asked, looking back up, though, in his trademark style, off into the middle distance, rather than making eye contact with Jason._

_“Are you okay?”_

_Cassiel didn’t answer, just tilted his head and furrowed his brow in thought._

_“Cass?”_

_He swallowed before answering, like the words were too big and too strange in his mouth. “I… I don’t know,” he said._

_Jason felt like he might have an idea, even if Cass didn’t, just from the look on his face. The angel seemed shaken. Once and always the emotionless rock of their almost-family, sure, but human, deep down. Human when it mattered._

_Not the unattached android his family expected him to be. Not the predictable program Lucifer had been hoping to turn to his own advantage._

_Jason had no way to help himself - he stood from the bed, and crossed to the door. Cassiel was wrapped up in his arms before he could protest. Jason squeezed, burying his face in the angel’s neck, and Cass went stiff in shock for only a moment before he relaxed into it, two hands coming up to grip weakly at the sides of his shirt._

_“Jason,” Cassiel said, and got no further than that one word. Jason didn’t know if it was a protest, or a comfort, or a scolding, the tone ambiguous in Cass’ numb shock. But he didn’t pull away. In that moment, that was enough._

_“Just… just stay,” Jason choked out. His face was hot, and years of touch starvation bubbled over into the feeling that here, now, he couldn’t let go of Cassiel. If he let go, he’d float away, be swept up in the cosmic whirlwind that surrounded them so inescapably, and be lost._

_Cass slipped his arms all the way around and squeezed, embracing him fully, and rested his head softly on top of Jason’s._

-excerpt from _The Fallen Angel_ by Irma Allen

* * *

Sam’s already glacial progress on _Holy Hell_ ground to an absolute halt the instant Castiel walked out the door.

In spite of himself, in spite of how badly he wanted to finish the series, for his readers and himself, every glance at his word processor just made something in Sam’s chest _ache._ There was no happy ending for Jason and Cassiel while Sam knew Cas was upset with him, and that he’d be ever more upset if, or when, he knew the whole truth. He didn’t deserve a happy ending - so, in that moment in time, neither did Jason.

Quickly, Sam became the one who was sulking. He put his laptop away and spent his time doing just about anything else, from distressingly unsuccessful searches for a hunt, any hunt, to routine archival busywork, to just reading his way through some potentially useful volumes from the Men of Letters library.

Sam had mentally blocked out the world around him, absorbed in a tome on astronomy’s effects on spellwork when a glass bottle landed on the table in front of him with a heavy _thunk,_ shattering his focus.

“How’re you holding up?” Dean asked, rounding the table with his own beer.

Sam slapped the thick book shut and graciously accepted the cold drink, sitting back in his chair. “I’m fine,” he said, and it was not intentionally dishonest - though his frustration had recently given way, at last, to plain and simple fatigue. “Why?”

“Really?” Dean scoffed. He sat down across from Sam. “Why do you think? You’ve been looking like a kicked puppy since-- well, for days, actually.”

Sam scowled. “I have not,” he argued.

“Uh huh,” Dean drawled, voice dripping with sarcasm - utterly unconvinced. “So, you’re not upset, sure. But if you _were,_ and if that funk started when you fought with Cas and he _left…”_

Sam sighed.

“So?” He asked. “So what? People fight. Wouldn’t you be kinda pissed off?”

“Yeah, I probably would,” Dean mused, and took a sip of his drink. “But I figured maybe this was a _thing.”_

“A _thing?”_ Sam said, with a derisive laugh.

“Yeah,” Dean said. “A thing.”

Dean didn’t elaborate. He was waiting, perhaps, on Sam, like Sam was supposed to know what the fuck he was on about. When Sam didn’t speak, Dean sighed, and took another shot at it.

“I’d hate to think you’d had the wool pulled over my eyes this damn long,” Dean said. “So I have to assume you and Cas _aren’t_ still a thing?”

It took one, very long minute for Sam to process what Dean was asking, and when, at last, he did, he felt his eyes go wide, staring at his brother. His stomach dropped into his feet.

“What?” Sam asked. It was all he could think to say.

Dean smirked, as if to him, this was just another dumb joke, something to tease him about. _“Fallen Angel,_ chapter nine,” Dean said. “Jason and Cassiel sneak out to the car after dark to have a ‘private talk.’” Dean helpfully added real life finger quotes. “Cassiel’s never gotten off before, so when Jason blows him, he has no idea he has to hold himself back to keep from blowing out the windows when he comes.”

Sam’s throat had gone dry. He had forgotten how to breathe. He had a vague, nagging feeling like he was gonna sick.

Dean finding out was one thing. One already-pretty-bad thing. Dean finding out via an intimate, highly detailed description of Sam introducing their angel to oral sex was…

Oh _fuck._

“Oh,” Sam said, dumbly.

“And I thought, we never did figure out how some punk kid managed to sneak onto Bobby’s property and bust my windows from the _inside.”_

His brain having fully gone offline, Sam couldn’t have defended himself if he’d tried.

“I… I-- Dean, I’m _so_ sorry about the windows,” Sam said, stumbling over the words with a tongue that was suddenly too big for his mouth.

Dean laughed again - probably more at Sam’s dumbfounded look than anything else. “What I don’t get,” he continued. “Is why you didn’t want me to know.” Dean’s expression finally settled, taking it at least a little seriously at last, asking in care rather than in mockery.

“I didn’t _not_ want you to know,” Sam sputtered out, after a few moments of trying to remember how words worked. “I just… it wasn’t ever the right time. I didn’t want to make things weird for you when our lives were already so fucked up.”

“What makes you thinking knowing my brother found somebody to care about him would be anything but happy for me?” Dean asked.

“Okay, first off, the last person I’d been with for any period of time was _Ruby,”_ Sam said. “And second, look, Cas and I aren’t still… I don’t know. Together. After everything, it wasn’t the same, and we tried to pick it up again a few times, but it never seemed to last. Stuff kept getting in the way and one day he just wanted to give it a rest for a while, so we did.”

“Cas wanted to give it a rest?” Dean asked. “Like, he said that to you?”

“He wrapped it up in the whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ speech, but yes,” Sam sighed.

“Hm.” Dean thought about it for about as long as it took to take another sip of beer. “So, uh… how much is true?”

“Excuse me?”

“The books. How much?”

“Um…” Sam had to think about it, find the balance between how honest he wanted to be about Cas versus how dishonest he had to be about Irma. “Not all of it,” he said. “I think the other Cassiel books are kind of exaggerated, but they're all mostly true. Not the other books though. Just the ones you already knew about.”

“Maybe you should call him, Sammy,” Dean said softly.

“Dean, I don’t think Cas wants to talk to me right now,” Sam said.

“I don’t mean right now,” Dean said, clarifying his position. “Well, as soon as you’re ready but…”

“He’s determined to find her,” Sam said. “I can’t convince him otherwise, and maybe I shouldn't.”

“Let him find Irma Allen, sure,” Dean went on. “He should. But I think you should talk to him about that touchy-feely stuff, you know?”

“... You’ve lost me, Dean.”

Dean sighed, bordering on exasperated. “Jesus Christ, how stupid can you--” He cut himself off. “Allen gets your rich inner world or whatever, right? So from what I read, you still want Cas. You wanna love ‘im, you wanna be with him, you wanna touch his junk--”

“Dean!”

“What’s the point in pretending you don’t want him anymore?” Dean asked.

“ _He_ doesn’t want _me_ anymore,” Sam said.

“Have you _asked_ him?” Dean asked.

“Why else would he hate the books so much?” Sam asked. “Why would he ask for a break and then never bring it up again? Does that sound like somebody dying to get back together?”

Dean leaned back in his chair, and shrugged. “It’s a two way street, Sam,” he said. “You can guess what’s going on in that weird little head of his, but if you never ask…”

Sam dropped his eyes, and lowered his voice. “If I never ask, I don’t get hurt twice,” he admitted.

Dean shook his head. “Not that I don’t get, but…” He trailed off. “It’s up to you, Sam. I just… I wouldn’t be so sure Cas is opposed to the idea.”

Sam thought about it, drumming his fingers on the table top and considering Dean’s words.

“Maybe... “ Sam said, half to himself.

Maybe Dean had a perspective Sam didn’t, knew dimensions of Castiel that Sam hadn’t considered before. Between the three of them, there was no true ‘odd man out,’ not anymore. Dean and Cas were best friends, had just as deep a bond as Sam and Cas did, or Sam and Dean, for that matter. Not the same kind of love, no, but equally strong. The love between his brother and their friend didn’t somehow take something away from the love Sam and Cas had, as lovers or as friends, but it did mean Dean was the foremost expert in Castiel-ology whenever Sam needed a second opinion.

“Maybe,” Sam said again, and this time, it was a full sentence, a statement in and of itself.

* * *

_From: sarah@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_Subject: Urgent!!! Heads up!_

_I’m so, so sorry - a guy came by today from the IRS asking about you and I had to tell him your banking info. I gave him the account number I use to transfer your royalties. I didn’t want to, but he told me I could be arrested for not cooperating! I realize now I should have told him to come back with a warrant, but I panicked! I’m so sorry Irma!_

_Are you really involved in money laundering???_

_I just thought you needed to know. I hope this works out for you - I’m behind you 100%!!! So sorry again!!!!!!_

_S_

 

_From: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: sarah@starlightpublishing.com_

_Subject: re: Urgent!!! Heads up!_

_Hi Sarah,_

_I think I know what’s going on, and don’t worry about it. It’s all a big misunderstanding, I’m dealing with it, and everything will be fine. No hard feelings!_

_Irma_  

 

* * *

Cas arrived back at the bunker late in the afternoon, two days later, in a surprisingly agreeable mood for a man who’d just exhausted all his leads on a case that mattered so much to him. He joined Sam and Dean for dinner, recounting in clinical language how he’d impersonated a tax collector, intimidated the publisher in New Jersey, and used the branch number of Irma Allen’ bank account to track down her likely hometown and, via bank records, address, only to find her listed address was an abandoned farm near Pensacola and her bank statements were all being sent via email, to her address on the publisher’s domain. Cas had gone in one big, 3700 mile circle, both literally and philosophically.

He was tired, Sam could tell. Several days on the road will do that to a guy. But the edge was off. He was breathing easier.

The relief Sam felt was so palpable that he almost forgot he’d requested a private audience with Castiel until he hard a soft knock on the frame of his open door as he was getting ready for bed. He looked up from his pajama drawer to see Cas waiting, patiently, just on the other side of the threshold.

“You wanted to talk,” Castiel said, almost gently. “I assumed you meant in private?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, and felt himself return a tired smile. “Yeah, come in.”

As Cas did just that, Sam stepped around him to shut the door softly, then returned to pull the chair out from his desk and offer it to Cas. As Castiel sat, Sam took up a seat across from him on the bed.

Sam had rehearsed this conversation in his mind a couple times over the previous few days, but he’d never really managed to figure out how he thought it would, or should, go. Part of him felt like he was jumping into dark water with no idea how many sharks he’d find inside. Another part, well… the other part didn’t need a metaphor. There was no more pleasant a potential surprise than the conversation going the way he’d allowed himself the absolute barest shred of hope it might.

Cas watched Sam, patiently, waiting for him to speak. With a deep breath, Sam gave himself permission to take the plunge.

“I was talking with Dean while you were gone,” he began. “And, well, first things first: he knows about what happened. Between us.”

Cas raised his eyebrows. “Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’m sure that’s not--”

“I’m fine with it,” Sam said, quickly. “Really. We talked about it and he’s not upset. It’s not weird like I thought it would be. He was saying some stuff that made a lot of sense, actually and I wanted to kind of follow up and get your perspective on it.”

Cas simply nodded, a gentle encouragement for Sam to go on.

“Dean thinks I should ask you about, uh…” He swallowed. “I don’t wanna ask you to do something you don’t want to do, I’m absolutely not gonna pressure you, but I guess I never really understood why you didn’t wanna be together anymore.”

Realization dawned on Castiel’s face, slowly, sadly, and only in the subtle way any expression ever touched his features. His eyes slid off Sam’s face, to somewhere just over his left shoulder.

“It wasn’t anything you did, Sam,” he said.

“I know,” Sam said, though knowing and believing were very different things when it came to this particular subject. “You told me as much.”

“It just felt like… like our time had come and gone,” Cas explained.

Sam sighed. “Yeah,” he said, quietly. “I just… I don’t know what changed, you know? And if you just… lost interest… that’s okay, Cas.”

“It’s not--” Cas began.

Sam raised a placating hand, reaching between them. “Just know it’s okay,” he said. “But we never really closed the loop, and I-I don’t want to feel like I’m still waiting for you to call off the break. I just wanna know where we stand.”

Castiel, despite his urgency to reassure Sam the moment before, went quiet. His expression was sullen, helpless.

It was a while before he spoke, softly and with half steps of hesitation between each phrase. “It wasn’t a good time for us,” Cas said. “I was sick, and I didn’t think… I didn’t think I was going to last much longer. But then I got better, and before we had a chance to reconsider, I made a terrible mistake - again. After I let Lucifer back out, I didn’t think you’d still want… I understood you’d likely want to keep some distance.”

Sam resisted the urge to reach for Castiel’s hand.

“I didn’t want you to be my partner when I died,” Cas said, voice steadier than before, more straightforward in his language. “I didn’t want that for either of us. And I didn’t want to put you through trying to explain to me why you didn’t want to be intimate after _he_ used _my face_ to hurt you.”

Sam listened. He tried to internalize it all, tried to follow Cas’ logic, and found he failed only where, it seemed, Cas had made his own assumptions about Sam’s feelings. But how could Sam really blame him? He’d been doing it, too, making self defeating assumptions all along.

There was only one point on which he was still confused - or rather, perhaps, insecure.

“You’d rather have died alone?” Sam asked.

Cas finally looked at him again. There was something distressingly close to pity in his eyes.

“When you died - when you went to hell - Sam, I didn’t wait 12 hours before trying to get you back,” Castiel explained. “And I caused suffering. For you, and for your brother. So much suffering that nothing I have ever done to try and fix it has ever felt like enough.”

And Cas wasn’t wrong. Sam had been through the wringer for Cas’ botched rescue mission, but he also knew well the feeling of fucking up and knowing no amount of right could ever overcome the wrong.

“I didn’t want to come back broken. I didn’t want you to suffer looking for a way to get any part of me back,” Cas said. “I wanted to die your friend so that I could stay dead and you would still have a chance to move on.”

Sam swallowed thickly.

“What do you want now?” He asked.

Cas seemed to shake himself. “Sam, I understand completely why you wouldn’t want to--”

“Cas,” Sam said sternly. “Lucifer doesn’t change how I see _you._ What I want is to know if… if you _want_ to… to…”

“To try again?” Cas asked gently.

Sam nodded. “Could you?” He asked.

Castiel responded by standing, slowly closing that half step between the chair and the bed, and reaching for Sam, hands hovering, uncertain, fingertips just brushing his shoulders. Sam looked up to track the angel’s movements.

“If I’ve wasted all this time…” Cas muttered. “Sam, I’m so sorry.”

Sam felt himself start to smile, a spark of dangerous hope burning like an ember inside him.

“Is that--” Sam began to ask, but Castiel cut him off.

“Yes,” Cas breathed.

Sam reached for him, too, touched his cheek and jaw, and Castiel’s hovering hands fell to meet his shoulders and wrapped themselves around the back of his neck. Cas hesitated, the same as he always had in those brief, scattered times together, like something about the human touch he craved still didn’t quite come naturally to him. So Sam helped. He drew Cas in, stretching up to meet him.

Their lips came together. Sam ran his thumb over Cas’ cheek. It wasn’t a particularly deep kiss, just deep enough.

It was short, too. They parted, and Cas, then standing between Sam’s knees, kept his hands where they were, rubbing circles in the hair at the nape of Sam’s neck, while Sam laid his cheek against Castiel’s collarbone. He listened to the steady thump of Cas’ all-too-human heart. It was a sound he hadn’t gotten close enough to hear for a long time.

And all at once, Sam was allowed to touch, again. The invisible bubble of personal space burst and Sam… Sam was was at peace. Allowed to stop walking on eggshells. Allowed to know that Cas belonged this close, that he did, too, that they belonged in each other’s arms.

Sam almost wanted to cry.

“Would you like me to stay?” Cas asked.

Sam turned his head and tilted it all the way back, until it was his chin resting against Cas’ sternum instead of his cheek. He raised his eyebrows - a silent request for the angel to elaborate.

“Right now,” he explained. “Tonight. Here.”

Sam smirked. “Of course,” he said. “Only if you--”

“Of course I do,” Cas said, and returned the smile.

Castiel didn’t have pajamas anymore. Without sleep, he hadn’t really needed to change just to spend the night reading or watching TV, and he’d never felt uncomfortable in his trademark suit and tie. Sam’s pajama pants and t-shirts, though, were then and had always been up for grabs and delightful oversized on Cas, admittedly a guy on the taller side, but who looked small next to, and in the clothing of, an even taller one.

Sam had to admit, at least to himself: it sparked a kind of primal, warm, possessive feeling. Maybe he ought to work that into the books before Cassiel got his grace back and stopped sleeping.

Cas paused, after changing into the loose flannel pants, bare chested, the big old shirt from some roadside attraction still clutched in his hands. “I appreciate the loaners, but I’ve had a thought,” Castiel said. “If you’re interested in intercourse, maybe we should save the sleepwear for after, so they don’t get too dirty?”

Sam fought back a smile. There was something about that he’d missed, even if it was tough to put his finger on. Maybe the frank, unencumbered way Cas talked about sex. Maybe his painful practicality.

“You just drove like four thousand miles,” Sam said, instead. “The last few days, I’m tired, too. I’m thinking maybe it’d be nice to just…”

“Cuddle?” Cas suggested.

Sam laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “That.”

Cas shrugged into the big shirt and made his way over to ‘his’ side of the bed. Still his, somehow, thought it’d been years since they shared it for anything other than Netflix binges, (which, often as not, had been unintentionally chaperoned by Sam’s brother).

Sam wiggled in under the covers, and Cas did the same. He wasted no time shuffling towards Sam and pressing against his side, half lying on Sam, who was lying on his back. He wrapped one arm, the one not crushed beneath their combined bodies, around Sam and let his knuckles brush against the outside curve of Sam’s tricep, while Sam wormed his hand into the sleeve of Cas’ t-shirt to rest his palm against the smooth plane of Cas’ upper back, which radiated heat.

Castiel shifted until his head rested on Sam’s collar, head tilted up, pressing a little closer in. Sam heard a heavy, deliberate inhale.

“You’re so weird,” Sam whispered.

“Let me smell,” Cas grumbled. “I still can’t quite believe you’d actually take me back, let me have this, so I at least know you’re really here.”

“Cas, I told you, it was all a misunderstanding,” Sam said.

 _“That_ I understand,” Cas said, before softening his tone. “It’s just… I just never thought I’d have this again. Almost too good to be true.”

Sam hummed in agreement, and pressed a kiss to the top of Cas’ head, on his supernaturally clean, soft hair.

“We should promise to just be honest with each other from now on,” Cas continued. “Never let this happen again. All we have to do is tell the truth - even when it’s hard.”

Wrapped in warmth and floating on a lovey dovey high, Sam didn’t let the pang of guilt that thought sparked drag him down, and he instead put it out of his mind. He was fading already, anyway, and allowed himself to feel, at long last, safe enough to sleep with Cas at his side.

* * *

Sam woke with one numb arm and a boner against his hip, and damn, okay, he’d been glad to cuddle the night before, but if that wasn’t a welcome reunion, Sam didn’t know what was.

“You’re up already?” Sam drawled, without opening his eyes.

“You’ve been asleep for almost six and a half hours,” Castiel said. Evidently, he hadn’t moved an inch since Sam had dozed off the evening before. “That’s a long night for you.”

“Yeah, well, I sleep good when you’re here,” Sam replied.

“Are you going to wake up now?”

Sam sighed. “How long have you been waiting for me to wake up?”

“Long enough that I’d rather you wake up _now,_ but not long enough that I’m going to throw a temper tantrum if you want to go back to sleep for another hour,” Cas said.

Sam laughed, still laying back with his eyes shut. “And you’re usually so precise,” he said.

Cas sat up, and extricated himself from Sam’s arms. With little warning and a surprising amount of finesse, he threw one leg over Sam’s body and settled his weight firmly across Sam’s hips, knocking the breath out of him and getting his legs hopelessly tangled in the blankets that had still been covering them both from the waist down. “One hour, forty seven minutes, and,” Castiel paused, thinking, or waiting. “Thirty five seconds. Ongoing.”

“Well, fuck, I’m awake now,” Sam laughed, taking the movement of Cas’ weight from his shoulder to his hips as a chance to stretch out his back and try to work the pins and needles out of the arm that had gone numb overnight.

Cas leaned right down and kissed him. Infinitely less chaste than their big kiss the night before, it was open mouthed and wet, drawing Sam’s tongue into his mouth and clutching at the curve of his jaw with the pads of his fingers as if he might just fall up to the ceiling without the anchor.

Sam put his hand on Cas’ hips, ran his thumb over the jut of his hip bone, down along the crease where thigh meets body, over the rough flannel sleep pants. It drew a noise from Cas, muffled by the kiss.

Cas rocked his hips experimentally, dick-on-dick through the pajamas, and Sam joined him in the muffled groaning. His own cock was rapidly catching up to Castiel’s hour and forty seven minute head start.

“Are your things still in the shoebox?” Cas asked when he managed to drag his mouth away from Sam’s.

“Yeah,” Sam breathed.

Cas didn’t even get off him, just leaned down and reached under the bed like it was muscle memory, an old habit. Pinned by Cas’ reach, Sam listened to the cardboard box slide out from under them on the hardwood floor, and the lid clatter to the ground.

“Oh,” Cas said. He propped himself up on one forearm across Sam’s chest, which kinda hurt, but which he allowed for the time being. “That’s new.”

Cas came up with two items perched precariously in his one hand - the lube he’d gone down for, dangling by its lid, and a garish pink dildo, the sight of which immediately prompted Sam’s face to flush to match its hue.

“Oh fuck, I forgot,” he muttered, covering his face with his hands.

“How do you forget you own something so ugly?” Cas asked, with what sounded like genuine curiosity.

Sam sighed. “Look, okay, it’s not like I was out getting laid every weekend,” he said. “And even when something came up, it was almost _always_ cis women.”

“I see,” Cas said. “You missed bottoming.”

Sam huffed. “I missed _you,_ asshole.”

“Hm,” Cas hummed, and considered the fake cock for another moment before tossing it back in the general direction of the shoebox. He instead busied his hands trying to drag up the hem of Sam’s sleep shirt. “That’s good, because I’ve missed you, too, but also your penis, specifically. So if you don’t object…”

Sam sat up. “Wait, wait,” he said. “Have you-- since the last time we did it--”

“No,” Cas said, using the opportunity to get the shirt fully over Sam’s head and start dragging it off his arms. “No one else interests me, Sam, you know that.”

“Oh, man, you’re making me feel guilty.” Sam played it off with a self conscious little laugh.

Castiel pushed him back down and bent to mouth at his neck for a while. He spoke between kisses and tiny bites. “Don’t be,” he said. “I typically hesitate to call sex a ‘need’.” Kiss. “But your drive-” Kiss. “Is just more active than mine.” What felt like a future hickey.

Sam huffed a laugh. “And yet the minute you’re back in my bed, you become a real horny son of a bitch,” he said.

Cas hummed his agreement against Sam’s skin, rolling his hips again as if in demonstration. “Exactly.”

Sam couldn’t hold back his smirk. “Okay,” he breathed, and reached for the tie on Cas’ pajama pants. “Come on, then.”

Sam managed to loosen the pants and get them halfway off Cas’ ass before the position became problematic and he had to prompt Cas to stop sucking bruises into his collarbone long enough to sit up and get his dick out. It bobbed up, thick and heavy, when Sam pulled away the flannel, and his breath caught in his throat at the sight. Reverently, he placed his palm against the the warm skin of Cas’ firm stomach, and slid his hand up toward his ribs, lifting the hem of his t-shirt and making it drape artfully across Cas’ midriff. Sam looked him up and down a few times - exposed cock and belly, the muscles in his arms tensed as they took some of his weight up off Sam’s body, those stunning eyes.

“Fuck, you’re beautiful,” Sam breathed. “Do you know that?”

Cas smiled, but turned his eyes away. Not used to receiving compliments, Sam thought. Not ones like that, anyay. Castiel put his hand over Sam’s on his ribs, running the edge of his thumb over Sam’s knuckles.

“I’ve been told,” he said. “Usually by a peak physical specimen with an incomparably radiant soul and a personality to match.”

Sam’s heart fluttered in his chest. It seemed two could play at that game.

“Your turn,” Cas said, lifting some of his weight off Sam’s hips and reaching for Sam’s pants.

Sam tried to wiggle out of them in their current position, but even with Cas’ help, it was rough going. Cas wasn’t exactly being as helpful as he could have been - getting his hands onto Sam’s dick was an instant and major distraction for them both. Though he was loathe to refuse any touch, after so long, Sam didn’t want it to be over without getting all the way to what they both really wanted.

“Hang on,” Sam breathed. “Get off for a sec.”

With clear reluctance, Cas gave up touching and, with a huff, half rolled, half fell back onto his side of the bed. As Sam used the freedom to get out of his pajama bottoms, Cas took the hint and did the same. Both were shoved into the pile of the sheets and carelessly kicked to the foot of the bed, along with the interfering blanket.

When Cas climbed back on, there was nothing between them, and it made Sam’s heart skip a beat. Cas immediately went back down for another kiss, trapping both their cocks in between their bellies, skin on skin and brushes of the soft cotton of Sam’s own t-shirt, which Cas was still wearing. Sam laced the fingers of one hand through Cas’ hair as they kissed, and gripped his hip with the other, making tiny, aborted thrusts into the space between them.

Cas worked his hand between them and took them both in a loose grip, giving one, two slow, deliberate pumps of his hips before stilling as he pulled away from the second kiss. He was breathing heavily, and that made Sam realize that so was he.

“Need to wait,” Cas said, quiet in the small space between them, and finished with a peck on Sam’s cheek before sitting up.

Sam scooped the lubricant up from where it had fallen between the pillows, and popped the cap. “You want help?” He asked.

Cas smiled like the cat that got the cream. “Please,” he said, simply, so Sam tipped the bottle over his own hand and squeezed.

Cas shifted his weight up on to his knee, for access, and shuffled forward, until he was more astride Sam’s ribcage than anything else. Even propping himself up on the pillows, Sam felt a little less big with Cas hovering over him like that. He held the top edge of the headboard behind Sam, but supported most of his weight on his legs alone, flexed hamstrings making his thick thighs seem that much thicker. Sam couldn’t resist running his dry hand up one on his way to his goal, then bypassing it to lift the hem of his shirt and press a brief kiss to Cas’ belly.

He heard Cas huff above him. For an eons old being with infinite patience, he sure could be kind of a bitch about foreplay.

Sam gave Cas’ cock a couple light strokes, and when he had him momentarily distracted, slid one well-lubed finger over his hole and pressed, gently but firmly. It slid in with minimal resistance, and Cas let out a contented sigh.

A few minutes of unhurried in-and-out, some gentle exploration, and Cas was well past ready for a second finger as Sam’s wrist was starting to ache. He pulled out and replaced both hands on Cas’ hips.

“What?” Cas asked.

“You mind a flip?” Sam asked. “Or are you married to this position?”

Cas let his weight back down and shuffled back enough that when he rested it on Sam, it wouldn’t be squishing his lungs. “I don’t mind,” he said. “What are you thinking?”

“Hang on,” Sam said, sitting up to wrap one arm around Cas’ middle, and abruptly, he flipped them over.

“Oof,” Cas said with half a laugh. He’d landed firmly on his side of the bed, legs flailing momentarily in the air, still splayed around Sam’s hips, but with gravity working in the opposite direction.

Sam shuffled down Cas’ body. With a better angle, he’d be able to put his elbow into it, shift some of the strain off his wrist, and get a full range of motion. He wasted no time before slipping two fingers inside Cas, who helpfully canted up his hips, hooking one knee over Sam’s shoulder. Experimentally, Sam took the head of Cas’ cock into his mouth and sucked as he worked him open. Cas let out a breathy moan, and clenched momentarily around his fingers.

Sam barely had the third finger fully in before Cas was gripping his shoulder, urging him up and off.

“It’s enough,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“No offense, Cas, but if it’s been almost three years since you’ve had _anything_ up here, it’s not gonna be as smooth going as it used to be,” Sam said.

“I’m an angel, Sam,” Cas sighed. “And I’m getting to be an impatient one - I can relax myself as long as you’re slicked up, and can take more of a stretch than you might realize.”

Sam sighed, and looking into Cas’ face, realized that it was an argument he’d lose, and one he didn’t want to have in the first place. He had to trust Cas to know his own body.

He leaned in for one more short kiss before reaching for the bottle and lubed up his cock. The touches, however light, however clinical, were enough to renew the urgency in his gut after spending the last several minutes focused on Cas and Cas alone.

Sam got his hands under Cas’ thighs, and then his ass, finding a comfortable way to distribute their combined weight. He was still sitting up on his knees, still had just a bit more of the fiddly technical part to get out of the way, but would need to not be holding Cas up with his hands later. Castiel’s thighs rested on Sam’s where he put them, but Cas quickly wrapped his legs around to hold his own weight, one heel bumping against Sam’ ass.

He shifted his position, lined himself up, and with one long, hot push, Sam was halfway in. Cas exhaled and let his head fall back against the pillow, a long sigh like Sam’s cock was pushing the very air out of his lungs.

Sam hummed with pleasure. Being inside Cas was tighter, hotter than he remembered. Better, somehow, than the memories that made up his idealized fantasies in their long time apart. Because it was real. Because it was right in front of him.

God, he’d _missed_ this. So much more than he’d ever allowed himself to realize.

Cas reached for his own erection, and gave it a long, slow pull. Sam tried to take over for him, give Cas the attention he deserved, but Castiel caught the reaching hand with his own free hand, using a soft grip to keep it away from his cock.

“Focus, Sam,” Cas breathed. “One thing at a time.”

Looking at Cas, Sam sighed, and relented. He slid one hand up under Cas to his lower back, just barely held off the sheets by the angle between his upper back, on the pillows, and his hips, in Sam’s lap. With his other arm, Sam braced himself above Cas as he leaned forwards into him.

“Feeling good?” Sam asked, as Cas began to stroke himself again, fist still loose around his shaft and moving at a leisurely pace.

Cas nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Please.”

Sam was more than happy to oblige. He started working his hips is little half-inch presses in and drags out, starting shallow, getting a little more of himself into Cas’ ass each time, letting the slow progress of the sex make up for the prep Cas had interrupted.

Within minutes, the still tight slide was easy, gradually picking up pace as the resistance of each stroke lessened. Sam could feel Cas clench his thighs around his hips intermittently, shifting his hips to get Sam’s cock just a little more precisely where he wanted it. Cas, ever demanding, planted his free hand against the headboard to push back into Sam’s thrusts.

Feeling finally settled, really getting into it and letting instinct take over, Sam leaned down fully, bending nearly in two to rest his forehead on Castiel’s shoulder. His long thrusts gave way to little more than a rutting into Cas. He could hear every breath, heavy and with an occasional quite whine underneath, that was punched out of the angel.

He could feel the knuckles of the hand Cas was still using to touch himself against his sternum, but slowly, almost reluctantly, that hand slipped away. When Sam next became aware of Cas’ hands, one was sliding into his hair, urgently, gripping not to control, not to cause pain, but in some kind of desperation - he was just holding on.

Sam was starting to feel it pool in his belly - his orgasm was there if he would just buckle down and chase it, not yet urgent, but coming up over the horizon.

“Cas?” Sam panted against Cas’ chest.

“I know,” Cas replied, equally breathless. “It’s okay.”

“Like this?” Sam asked. “Or I can--”

“Like this,” Cas said.

Sam couldn’t help but let out a short, breathless laugh. Three years and a short syllable or two was all it took to be understood perfectly, at least when they had each other’s bodies to do the rest of the talking.

Sam raised his head, paused to press a kiss to Cas’ throat just above the collar of the shirt, and then reached up even further to get his mouth on Castiel’s, desperate and fully lacking in finesse. One last long, deep kiss before the endgame.

He had to sit up, some, but with Cas using his legs to hold his lower half up, he could still dedicate one arm to keeping himself propped up above Cas, rather than have to abandon face-to-face completely.

The other hand he used to push his shirt up Castiel’s body, gathered up at his chest and exposing the plane of his stomach, to get it out of the way before turning his attention to Castiel’s cock. Sam took Cas in hand and starting stroking him in earnest. Not the long, slow pulls Cas had used to relax himself when Sam entered him, or the loose fist that’d given him much needed relief in the middle. Sam worked Cas’ cock over quickly, eagerly - he wanted to make Cas come.

Sam threw the rest of his energy into keeping up with his thrusts into Cas’ ass, finally, desperately chasing down his orgasm.

He felt Cas’ hand, no longer able to comfortably reach his face and hair, wrap loosely around the wrist of the hand that was braced against the bed. Cas was watching the big show, the action down where they were joined, but Sam didn’t mind. Working by touch, he had his own show to watch - the blissed out look on Castiel’s flushed face, a rare celestial event few would ever see. And it was all Sam’s.

Sam’s rhythm started to stutter, and he had to take a breath. He wanted it, God, but he wasn’t about to leave Cas hanging.

“Almost, baby?” He asked. Cas’ eyes shot up to his. He just nodded, like words were a little out of his depth with so much stimulation from all sides. “C’mon. C’mon, let go. Let me see.”

And with a few more thrusts, a few more pulls, and a flick of the wrist, he did. Castiel’s body tensed, clenching around Sam, and he let out a cry as he came, into Sam’s hand and all over his bare stomach.

Sam followed a minute later, spilling deep in Cas’ ass.

He let himself fall forward, resting his weight on Cas as they both caught their breath, if only for a moment. Then Sam pulled out, careless as to the mess he was leaving on the sheets, and rolled off, staying plastered to Cas’ side. Cas instinctively rolled towards him, not happy to have lost the body heat, and Sam took the opportunity of a new kind of face to face to put his hand on Cas’ cheek and drag him in for an unhurried kiss.

When he pulled away he realized, belatedly, that the hand he’d used to jack Cas off was the same hand he’d just pressed to Cas’ face, leaving a gooey white smear.

“Oh, shit,” Sam grumbled. “Hang on, I’ll get--”

Cas grabbed Sam’s wrist before he could make any more to get out of bed, and in the blink of an eye the mess was all gone, not just from Cas’ face, but his stomach, their crotches, and, Sam would hazard a guess, the sheets. Angel sex magic, he thought with a smile. Nothing quite like it.

Edging up to him, Cas let go of Sam’s wrist and wrapped that arm around Sam’s middle instead, pulling him into an embrace and tucking his head under Sam’s chin. As Sam relented, he reached to pull the covers up over them and wrapped his own arms around Cas, settling into it. Cas tangled their legs together under the blanket.

Castiel was then still for several minutes, breath steadying and slowing until it was deep and even, lulling Sam towards another few hours of sleep.

“Are you pretending to be asleep?” Sam asked quietly, the thought crossing his mind as he started to drift off.

“Not pretending anything,” Cas replied. “I don’t need to sleep for this to be the most restful place I could be.”

Sam smiled, buried his nose in Cas’ hair, and shut his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I missed you, too.”

* * *

The serious conversation Sam had known was coming, sooner or later, was at least put off until he’d woken for the second time that morning, both men still lounging together in the warm, soft bed, cuddling shamelessly. But sooner or later, Cas was always going to have to let a little reality into their daydream come true. Sam understood - at least he was ready for it when it came.

“Sam,” Cas said, his voice rumbling against Sam’s chest. “I still think Irma Allen is important. It still worries me.”

“Okay,” Sam breathed. He ran his fingers absently through Cas’ hair.

Maybe being ready for this converation meant it was time to come clean.

On the other hand, maybe naked in bed, having just resolved a years-long misunderstanding and followed it up with mind blowing sex, was not the time and place.

“I won’t make it your problem, I won’t let it cause you any more distress,” Cas continued. “But, with your blessing, I have one more idea I’d like to try.”

Sam raised his eyebrows, feeling himself suddenly tune in. One more idea. Sounded grave. Sounded _interesting._

“Okay,” Sam said slowly. “What’s that?”

“Of course she wasn’t willing to open up to a fan,” Cas explained. “But what about another professional in her field? Not just asking out of interest, but with a good reason?”

“Hm,” Sam hummed, unsure if he should be encouraging this continued pursuit, or if he should still be trying to convince Castiel to throw in the towel. He was still unwilling to expose the truth - but he was also supposed to be a supportive boyfriend again. “And what reason would you give her?”

“A professional engagement,” Castiel said, with surety and conviction. “Self published authors, I’ve learned, and especially those in genres like fantasy and horror, they tend to network and market to the readers directly. They attend networking events - conventions.”

“What makes you think she’s ever done anything like that before? She might just not want to travel, pay for a booth, order print copies…”

“Not a real event,” Cas explained. “And not as just any vendor. What if she were invited to speak? If I stroked her ego, and the event were small enough not to meaningfully threaten her privacy. Or even just a one on one meeting to discuss the possibility. It might be enough to get her out in the open.”

Sam sighed. Once again, he got the sense it was about time to come clean, but couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. Couldn’t quite risk it.

“It’s worth a shot,” he said, his words and tone admittedly weaker than he’d have liked, half another sigh in and of themselves.

“And I have your blessing?” Cas asked, raising his head to look Sam in the eye, face intensely serious. “You’d be alright if I continued the search like this?”

“Yeah,” Sam said, with a small, fond smile. Better to let him try, he thought. Better ‘Irma’ let him down gently. “Yeah, Cas. I’m behind you. A hundred percent.”

* * *

Cas had never looked as content as he did that morning at the kitchen table, back in Sam’s (now mild to moderately sweaty) t-shirt and pants, eyes closed in some kind of small bliss as he hovered over his cup of coffee. If night time was Cas’ time to enjoy watching Sam rest, breakfast time was Sam’s chance to do the same to Cas. No words. Nothing complicated. Just Cas enjoying his favourite non-Sam human indulgence, and being pretty darn cute while doing it.

They hadn’t been in the kitchen long before Dean shuffled in, after the smell of coffee, no doubt, in his slippers and ‘dead guy robe’. Bleary eyed, it took him a moment to even register that Sam and Cas were there, let alone their state of dress.

And then, hand already on the carafe, Dean paused. He turned to look at them, scrutinized them each for a long moment.

“So you guys worked it out, huh?” Dean asked.

Cas took a sip of his coffee. “Yes, Dean.”

“Mazel tov,” Dean said, poured his cup, and turned to walk right back out. On the way, he passed right behind Sam, sneak attacking him with an aggressive hair ruffling. “Brush your sex hair next time you wanna be subtle, Sammy.”

He could have taken the bait and bit back at Dean for that, but he caught Cas hiding a smile over the rim of his mug, and realized in that moment how very lucky he was that this - all of it - was even happening. Cas was back with him. Dean was their number one shipper. One big happy family, finally slotting into its natural, perfect state. There wasn’t much more Sam could have asked for.

* * *

The email rolled right on into his inbox a day later.

 

_From: miindypub@gmail.com_

_To: iallen@starlighpublishing.com_

_Subject: Appearance Proposal_

_Hello Ms. Allen,_

_My name is Levon Helm, and I’m the founder and manager of an upcoming publishing event in Kansas City called the Missouri Indie Lit Fest. We are gearing up to announce our first, hopefully annual, self publishing and independent literature convention, and are currently approaching potential special guests for our inaugural event this coming April._

_With much fondness for your wonderful Jason Singer books, and an understanding of the vital role played by erotica and LGBTQ+ fiction in the world of self publishing, we’d like to invite you to be a speaker and representative of the romance and erotica genres. As a special guest at the event, you will of course receive free admission, as well as reimbursement of travel expenses and a reasonable appearance fee, which we would negotiate at a later date if this proposal is of interest to you._

_This is a great opportunity to network with other authors and publishers, as well as bring new fans to your work, while promoting independent literature in our state. If you do reside in the Midwest, as has been speculated, this may be a very good fit for you._

_Please let us know if this sounds like an opportunity you’d like to discuss further._

_Hope to hear from you soon,_

_LH_

 

Sam knew it was coming. He’d proofread the email for Cas, after all. Played the helpful, supportive partner in front of him, and then gone back to his room to read it on the other side.

In the time between discussing the plan and receiving the email, Sam had considered several possible responses, but hadn’t been able to decide. A polite, but blunt refusal? An excuse? Radio silence?

_‘I’m sorry, Mr. Helm, I’m unable to travel in April, but best of luck finding another guest!’_

_‘Thank you for your offer, but I’m not interested. Good day.’_

_‘I’m actually a house bound Greek grandmother and couldn’t possibly travel to America due to my severe disability…’_

Sam drafted them all, and Sam deleted them all.

Something, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on what, made him hold back every excuse. Nothing felt good enough for the purpose, nothing satisfying enough to be the conclusion of Castiel’s Grand Search for the Elusive Author, Irma Allen. Nothing made Sam feel any less terrible about the impending disappointment he was going to be putting Cas through - or about the lie he still maintained.

He didn’t want to make Cas feel like he’d failed - Cas had no way of knowing Irma had a man on the inside. But he also didn’t want to make him feel betrayed by Sam’s secret. Catch 22.

But how long could he really be expected to keep it secret? How long could the question go unanswered?

How could he give Cas closure without losing him?

Sam thought of how relieved, how happy Cas had been when they’d revealed they still had feelings for one another, and the promise he’d asked for that they stay honest. He wanted to keep that promise, so badly. The lie was no longer helpful - or healthy. He wondered if he could ever let it go, would ever find the courage to risk hurting Cas to stop deceiving him.

Well. There was only one way to find out, he supposed. If you never try...

 

_From: iallen@starlightpublishing.com_

_To: miindypub@gmail.com_

_Subject: re; Appearance Proposal_

_Hi Levon,_

_I’d love to learn more about your event - could you possibly meet me in the vicinity of Kansas City to discuss further?_

_Irma Allen_

‘Levon’ responded quickly, and over the course of a few more emails, they decided a date, a time, and a chain coffee shop just on the far side of the Kansas-Missouri state line.

Castiel lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.

He was _ecstatic_ about the meeting, utterly unable to contain himself at the apparent inevitability of getting answers at long last. He went over his plan, his predicted flow of conversation, with Sam, discussing and tweaking and seeking second opinions what felt like dozens of times in the short days between the email exchange and the scheduled meeting. Erratically, Cas flip flopped between nerves and passion. Finally, he could fix this for Sam. Finally he could find the spy and make them safe _. Finally._

And while Cas prepared to meet ‘Irma’, Sam sat down at his laptop, opened a new word document, and ‘Irma’ prepared to meet Cas with just as much care and enthusiasm.

* * *

_The minute the confession left Jason’s mouth, it felt like time stood still. All at once, the regret he’d been dreading poured over him, and he was petrified that this, of all things, would be too much. That Cassiel wouldn’t just reject him as a lover - but may decide not to associate with him at all._

_After all, it was overstepping boundaries, wasn’t it? He felt like such a heel._

_Cass’ stoney face betrayed nothing, but the quiver in his voice did the job anyway. “Do you mean… Do you mean you wouldn’t have felt uncomfortable?” He asked. “That if I’d asked, you still would have taken me back?”_

_Biting his lip, Jason nodded. “I was just scared you wouldn’t have done the same,” he said quietly._

_Cass reached across the space between them, placed a hand on Jason’s knee and leaned into his personal space._

_“If I’ve wasted all this time…” he said. “Jason, I’m so sorry.”_

_A spark of something - hope, maybe - lit up in Jason’s chest._

_“Is that a yes?” He asked, searching Cassiel’s face for answers._

_“God, yes,” Cass replied, and surged forward to put his mouth against Jason’s, in a deep, desperate kiss that felt like nothing less than coming home._

-excerpt from _If You Love Something, Set It Free_ , a short story by Irma Allen

* * *

Sam parked the Impala outside a strip mall in suburban Kansas City. Looking through the windshield, and further, through the picture window into the cafe, he could just catch a glimpse of tan fabric and dark hair - Cas, sitting to one side of the cafe, face to the door at a table for two.

He couldn’t have been waiting long. Sam had only left Lebanon about ten minutes after he had.

Sam turned off the ignition, collected a thin manilla envelope from the passenger seat, took a deep breath, and finally stepped out of the car and into the parking lot.

Cas had clearly been watching the door to the cafe intently, because he caught Sam’s eye instantly when he walked in. Recognition crossed his face, as Sam gave a timid wave on his way over, and then confusion. Cas squinted, scrutinizing Sam for any clues as to why he’d come.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, as Sam arrived at the table and pulled out the chair opposite Castiel.

“You invited Irma,” Sam said, by way of explanation.

“Yes,” Cas said. “And I’m sure she’ll be here any moment.”

“She’s here already,” Sam said. The furrow of Cas’ brow only deepened, and though he glanced from Sam to look at the coffee shop’s other patrons, he found nothing out of the ordinary, and only turned his attention back to Sam.

“I don’t understand,” Cas said.

Sam sighed - more at himself than at Castiel. He placed the manila envelope on the table, sliding it across the surface to Cas. Cas looked at the envelope, and then back to Sam, understanding possibly even less than before.

“What is this?” He asked.

“I think you should open that,” Sam said, smiling in spite of his nerves.

This was it - all or nothing.

Slowly, Castiel reached out and picked up the package, sliding his half-full coffee cup to the side. Sam watched as he unwound the string keeping it closed, folded back the flap, and extracted a dozen or so pages of freshly printed computer paper. He looked again to Sam for answers.

Sam nodded towards the document. Go on, then.

“ _If You Love Something, Set It Free_ by Irma Allen,” Cas read aloud. He continued reading silently, eyes scanning the first page, which he then turned over and laid face down on the table, moving on to the next.

Sam watched Cas closely, but his expression was unreadable, the confused look still firmly set in place through his reading of the entire 16 page document. It was gut wrenching to expose his work - not only to a person whose opinion he valued, and who he just couldn’t afford to lose, but Sam had never knowingly spoken to another soul who’d read his writings, had never opened himself up to criticism in the first place.

Combined with the exposure of his secret identity, it was all Sam could do to put his faith in Castiel’s care and good judgement, laying Irma out on the table like those sheets of paper.

When he finished reading, Cas laid the final page on top of the small pile he’d amassed on the table. His eyes remained glued to the document as he considered it as a whole, and they both sat in silence for a good, long minute.

“Where did you get this?” He asked quietly.

Sam took one, final deep breath.

“I wrote it,” he said, fighting the uneasiness in his stomach to speak with as much conviction as he could muster up.

Cas didn’t react right away. Sam might have thought Cas hadn’t heard him, still and silent as he was in the face of the confession, not sure how to respond. Then, at last, he looked up at Sam, eyes still clouded with confusion.

“You’re Irma Allen,” he said.

Sam’s heart was decidedly undecided on how it felt. Not being able to identify any real emotion in Cas’ face was terrifying. He did his best to smile.

“Yeah,” he said.

“I...” Cas began, at long last, then hesitated before speaking again. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me.”

Sam felt the tension in his chest release at any response other than rage, thank _God._ He exhaled. “I didn’t think you’d want our story to be used like that,” he explained. “I never thought about it like that, I always thought I was just taking control of my own story, but then you were so upset about the books when you read them… And when you said it wasn’t about that, I started wondering if you just objected to dwelling on what we’d had…”

“I’m so sorry,” Castiel said. “I had no idea I was making you feel like--”

“Cas,” Sam interrupted. “Cas, no, it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. I’ve been hiding this for _years._ And not just from you. I’ve… I’ve never told anybody about this.”

Cas’ face softened. “But you’re telling me now,” he said softly, a question rather than a statement.

Sam ducked his head to rub at his temples. “I didn’t wanna hide it from you anymore,” he said. “It didn’t feel right. And more than that - I just… I wanted you to know. I wanted to be honest with you.”

Cas smiled faintly down at the table. “I… thank you, Sam,” he said. “Thank you for telling me.”

They sat in silence a little longer, before Sam huffed a laugh, a sharp exhale out his nose. “So, uh, without your grudge against Irma,” he said. “What do you think?”

He wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Honesty, probaby. Praise, more likely. Maybe he’d just asked to change the subject.

Cas turned his restrained, distinctive smile up towards Sam. He focused his attentions on Sam, clearly thinking, like maybe Sam himself was what he was being asked to critique. In a way, he was - or at least that’s what it felt like. Sam appreciated that at least he was putting thought into it, rather than dispensing platitudes.

“Knowing Irma’s words and Jason’s feelings are yours,” Cas said. “Truthfully, Sam, I’m honoured.”

“Honoured?” Sam laughed.

Castiel seemed, once again, ever so slightly confused. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Wouldn’t you be? To know that not only that you were so beloved as to have inspired art, but that you’d been a comfort in hard times? To have proof that all your feelings were mutual, and that - at least when we’d been truly communicating - your love was felt deeply by the person you adored?”

“Yeah, I… I guess I’d…” Sam spoke, but wasn’t sure where his brain was going and faltered at every step. He’d never considered a version of this scene where Cas wasn’t upset. Hadn’t allowed it. Let alone a version where Cas said such… such…

Things like that.

Sam tumbled down into his own mind for a moment, but was brought back by Cas reaching across the table for his hand, laying it palm up on the table in his field of view, waiting patiently for a return of the gesture. Sam granted it, laying his hand over Castiel’s, fingers gripping weakly around his palm and wrist.

“I’m afraid I’m not so talented with words,” Cas said. “Maybe I should take up painting? Or photography?”

Sam looked up. Cas wore his wry half-smile, the tell tale sign that he was telling a joke, even if he was the only one who was in on it. Sam couldn’t help but smile back.

“It’s not a favour you have to return,” he said. “And it’d be a hell of a sappy gesture.”

“And this wasn’t?” Cas asked, nodding towards the short story still at his elbow.

Sam huffed again, a self conscious chuckle.

“Besides,” Cas continued, gently squeezing Sam’s hand. “Over the last few weeks I’ve learned a lot about literature. I know, now, that grand romantic gestures are a vital part of every love story.”

Sam squeezed back. “Well then,” he said. “I guess we’re on our way to a pretty great one, aren’t we?”


End file.
